Levy plans to force vote on county nursing home sale

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy is pressing for an up-or-down vote next Tuesday on the $36-million sale of the county nursing home in Yaphank - and will issue an emergency resolution if necessary to force the measure to the floor of the legislature.

Levy said he will issue a certificate of necessity to put the resolution - now bottled up in the health committee - before lawmakers after Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook) was noncommittal to a letter Levy sent last week seeking a vote at the legislature's Dec. 7 meeting in Riverhead.

The issue is coming to a head because the current sale contract runs out Dec. 31.

"It's clear that the time has come to have the vote to determine if the facility should be sold or closed," Levy wrote in his letter. "By late December . . . it will be exceedingly difficult to change course and still have the sale as an option. Additionally, it would be best for the residents and their families to have certainty."

Lindsay, who has promised to vote on the matter by year's end, would not be pinned down to an early vote, saying the legislature is still "weighing all options," but declined to be more specific. Lawmakers also have a meeting Dec. 21.

"The county executive is hell-bent on destroying the facility," Lindsay said. "But when push comes to shove we'll see what happens."

He added Levy has had the power to bring the issue to the legislature for a vote since August but has never done so.

"He needs 12 votes either way," said Lindsay, noting a two-thirds majority is needed to pass an emergency resolution or to declare the nursing home surplus property.

Responding later, Levy said he would issue an emergency resolution, if needs be, but could not predict whether he would have enough votes for passage, saying he would "have to run the table on the undecideds."

While Levy can force the sale resolution to the floor, lawmakers could still table it.

"From my perspective it's a no-brainer," Levy said. "If we sell it, we take the money, end the losses, keep the patients in their beds and eliminate the need to move them while giving employees a sense of continuity with a new owner."

Any attempt to block the sale, Levy added "is just politics . . . to embarrass the county executive and . . . create chaos."

One undecided, Legis. Wayne Horsley (D-Babylon), however, said he was not ready to make a decision.

"We have miles to go before a decision," he said. But he added, "Closure and not having it used would be just malfeasance."